Sunday, 11 January 2009

Sticky toffee pudding

There seems to be something about Christmas-time in Britain that makes everyone wildly over-estimate the amount of dates their guests will wish to eat. Most of us can happily get through the year without thinking much, if at all, about eating dates but, come December we’re buying boxes of the things as if Christmas would be ruined without them. I can hear the CCM (Caked Crusader’s Ma) bristling whilst reading this so I’d better confess – it was me who grossly over-bought dates this year. But who could blame me - aren’t they beautiful?

This was my thought process: it’s colder than Antarctica in England this week and I need to get rid of lots of dates. Voila! Sticky toffee pudding. If there was ever a better reason to stock pile dates I’m interested to hear it!

Here’s the cake fresh from the oven:

I can’t even try to argue any health benefits on this one; it’s as sinful as pudding can be. The sweet, light sponge is dotted with dates, releasing their beautiful toffee flavour in every mouthful. Add to that the thick, creamy sauce stoked up with brown sugar and black treacle and it’s an assault on the taste buds! Yum.

- Preheat oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/ Gas mark 4- Grease a 22cm square tin.- Boil the dates in the water for 5 minutes until the dates are soft. Make sure you use a large saucepan – larger than you think you need.- Stir in the bicarbonate of soda. It will bubble up a lot, hence the need for a large saucepan. Put to one side until needed.- Cream together the butter and sugar until well combined. It won’t become light and fluffy because the sugar far outweighs the butter.- Beat in the vanilla extract.- Beat in the eggs one at a time.- Stir in the flour.- Pour in the contents of the saucepan i.e. dates AND liquid.- Stir until well combined. The batter will be very runny so don’t panic.- Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the sponge comes out cleanly.- Leave to cool on a wire rack.- Now make the sauce: put all the ingredients into a saucepan and stir, over a low heat, until smooth.- Bring to the boil.- Cut the sponge into squares and ladle the sauce over the top. Serve with either ice cream (my favourite) or custard.- You can make both the sponge and the sauce in advance and re-heat when required. I re-heated the sponge, still in the tin, in a fan oven temperature of 130°C . The sauce can be re-heated in a saucepan on the hob – simply stir until smooth and then bring to the boil.- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.- Eat.

You can never have enough dates - I eat them like lollies out of the packet. And I adore sticky toffee pudding - if I see it on a menu, I close my eyes and pretend not to see it, because I know it is sinful - BUT I LOVE IT!

Yep, sticky toffee pudding is a favorite in our house too! My hubby took a trip to Scotland several yrs ago and came back raving about this dessert that they eat there. We love it - but save it for VERY special occasions! I don't even want to venture a guess on the calories! haha It's too good to spoil it with knowledge like that! Thanks for all the yummy recipes on your site - I'm enjoying looking around!

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So, the answer to the question you’re all asking: who am I? Well, a superhero never reveals their identity. I think it’s stated somewhere in the contract when you sign up for superhero-dom. Let’s just call me THE CAKED CRUSADER. By day (and night if I’m being honest) a mild-mannered City professional, but at weekends I become THE CAKED CRUSADER. Tirelessly fighting anti-cake propaganda and cake-related injustices – for SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, ALWAYS NEEDS CAKE (we’ll just skip over the fact that it’s usually me).

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I am a 40-something Chartered Accountant working in the square mile.
My main hobbies at the moment are baking, and setting the world record for the number of cake tins owned by one person.
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